Meeting global climate change goals means decreasing the use of coal and oil, and increasing use of natural gas and renewable energy. Under existing federal regulations, coal-fired power plants must meet GHG emission standards or retire when they reach 50 years of operation. Renewable energy is a solution to replace the coal-fired plants. This would mean market demand would rise for no-carbon energy sources. One challenge with renewable energy (i.e. solar and wind) for power generation is the intermittent nature of these energy sources. Energy storage technologies are key players for renewable energy to be used on demand when it is needed most, creating long-term benefit and reliability for years to come. Vanadium flow batteries are technologies providing long duration solutions over a 20+ year life for a broad range of applications including renewable energy integration and demand charge reduction. One of the biggest advantages of flow batteries is that replacing the electrolyte liquid, while simultaneously recovering the spent material for re-energization, can almost instantly recharge them.
A typical source of vanadium for vanadium redox batteries is created from mining. Governments around the world are looking at ways to secure environmentally friendly energy supplies. Traditionally “green” energy sources, such as solar and wind, are unreliable sources of electricity production and that is considered a big problem for the utilities that deliver power to consumers. The transmission grids need stable, predictable supplies of electricity; and that is where vanadium gets to play a role in the system. An emerging technology known as the vanadium redox-flow battery, can allow utilities to store the electricity generated by large-scale wind and solar farms until it's needed.
The prior art has extensive teachings in this area of technology. As an example, Grimely, in United States Patent Publication No. 2013/0078161, published Mar. 28, 2013, a method for recovering vanadium, nickel and molybdenum from the residue of the bottoms of heavy oil. The reference is focused on pyrolysis and combustion of the residues. Any discussion regarding the nickel fails to teach the use of a secondary source of the compound, latter such compounds having a much lower concentration than that realized for a secondary source commensurate with the technology.
Although a meritorious procedure, the Grimley publication does not disclose an efficient system, but rather one that is hampered by low concentration value content in the feedstock.
The presented technology targets the secondary vanadium electrolyte (VE). The main advantage in utilizing secondary vanadium source is the higher concentration of vanadium compared to that of a primary source (i.e. mine). The high concentration of vanadium as the secondary source will drive the production cost down.
The present technology transgresses the teachings of the prior art, thus providing for high efficiency as well as maximum recovery of metal values from a secondary source as opposed to a primary source obtained from mining.